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On the Verge: American Authors write their own ticket

Turns out that dropping out of college was a great career strategy for American Authors. Single 'Best Day of My Life' is No. 4 on USA TODAY's hot AC airplay chart and album 'Oh What a Life' is out March 4.

College dropouts: In 2006, Zac Barnett, James Adam Shelley, Dave Rublin and Matt Sanchez were all bright-eyed students with promising futures at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. After a few years performing as the Blue Pages, the quartet chucked school and moved into a three-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn, becoming one of thousands of New York-based indie bands with questionable futures. "I was a bartender at a small French restaurant in the East Village," says frontman Barnett. "Matt is a vegetarian and worked as a butcher. And James used to work for a Chinese TV station. We did what we had to do."

'Life' is good: Turns out that dropping out of college was a great career strategy for the twentysomethings. "We had really low points," says Barnett, 27. "Like after Hurricane Sandy, the restaurant where I worked was flooded and had to close down. I didn't know what to do." But now American Authors are having the Best Day of My Life: That single has risen to No. 4 on USA TODAY's hot adult contemporary airplay chart and No. 11 on adult-alternative, having sold 605,000 downloads and counting.

The breakthrough: Broke and still unemployed, Barnett had reached his wit's end when he found out that the band's first single, Believer, had been picked up by Sirius XM. Then Best Day of My Life appeared in a Lowe's commercial, Major League Baseball and ESPN spots and the trailer for Vince Vaughn's Delivery Man. "I had literally nothing left in my bank account, but things really took a left turn. We're thankful how it's all worked out," says Barnett.

Crafting their own story line: "We tell stories, so we look at ourselves as authors, and we're from all over the country, so that's where the American came from," says Barnett. "I'm from Minnesota, James is from Florida, Matt from Texas and Dave from New Jersey." The songs are all based in their experiences, so fans should consider the music a peek into their lives. "Two songs off our (self-titled) EP, for example. Luck is about moving away from family and having to miss big events and making those sacrifices," says Barnett. "Home is about how going home always turns out to be harder than you think it will be." While they call themselves alt-pop rock, the band pulls from wildly different styles. "We add our own flavor; we use EDM, hip-hop, Irish folk songs," he says. "We like everything from Jimi Hendrix and Motown to The 1975."

Next chapter: The band's debut album, Oh What a Life, is out March 4. They've got a summer tour planned, with stops at South By Southwest and Firefly music festivals. And now that they've got a little fame of their own, they're hoping to work with fun., Grouplove and Imagine Dragons. But if Barnett's going to dream big? "My all-time dream is to work with Paul McCartney."